


call up the devils (tell them i'm home)

by GrimRevolution



Series: Captain Marvel [5]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 06:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18493609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrimRevolution/pseuds/GrimRevolution
Summary: Half the universe was snapped out of existence and Carol comes home.





	call up the devils (tell them i'm home)

Carol arched over the curve of Jupiter, spun through the asteroid belt, and shot past the orbit of Mars. The stars looked dim all around her and she knew that it was because the sun was ahead; bright and yellow and still burning. Some part of her liked to believe that all they mourned as well; that all those beings in the universe that dared to look up—who dared to hope and dream and create stories—were missed.

She waved to the moon as she passed, smiling at the flag sitting still in the rock, only joined by footprints frozen in time. The eastern hemisphere was dark; lights creating firefly rivers across the landscape, dotting the ground in its own constellations. Life was still there; broken, shattered, but continuing. Humanity had been beaten down, had crawled, and would stand again.

Just like they have always done. Just as they always will.

Carol spread her arms out, let gravity grab her by the shoulders, and fell. The atmosphere ignited around her, licking at the energy that already burned across her suit. She was a falling star, slicing across the night and punching holes through clouds. Halfway to the ground, Carol steadied to a glide, checked her communicator, and followed the signal from the pager she had handed over to Fury all those years ago.

It dinged faster the closer she was until she was soaring over the top of the Empire State Building and watched her own reflection become muddled and twisted in the Hudson. Manhattan gave way to water which gave way to trees and grass and a series of rectangular buildings with a stylized A on the roof.

Carol landed on the helipad (there was, after all, no reason to be rude) and double checked to make sure that the signal was coming from inside. It was, so she breathed in the night air and the energy swirling around her body, waited for the glow to vanish, and walked up the pathway towards unguarded doors. It seemed, like first glance, to be an office building but there was too much technology in one area, too many weights in another.

The beeping on her communicator stopped.

Maybe a base of some sort. She peeked around a corner, frowned at the floor to ceiling windows, and kept walking. Training areas, a hangar, something that must have been a library. Carol walked up a few flights of stairs, crossed an open bridge, and frowned.

Empty. The whole damn place was empty. Even late there was always some poor insomniac wandering the halls but there was nothing, no one.

She pushed open a wooden door and paused, looking in at what seemed to be a lounge area. There were couches, a television, and what looked to be a fully stocked kitchen. Carol closed the door softly behind her and walked across the hardwood floor. Holographic red numbers counted up, higher and higher.

 _Missing_ , the text said. The number was in the billions.

Christ.

She could see people through the glass walls of what looked like another smaller room that had been turned into a makeshift lab. Four of them, standing in front of something. Two with blonde hair, one with greying curly, and the last shaved down. Three men and a woman. Only one of them didn’t look like a soldier; standing off to the side, wringing his hands. The others had their shoulders squared even as exhaustion blurred the lines of their bodies.

Carol dragged her fingers along the back of a chair, felt her glove catch on the seams.

“Reboot it,” The tallest man said, hair combed back, eyes on whatever it was they were standing around. He had broad shoulders. Soldier shoulders. “Send the signal again.”

He shifted just enough for her to get a peek at the blue tubes glowing on top of a stand surrounding a blank pager. Carol removed her gloves and stepped closer, keeping close to the glass to stay out of sight.

That wouldn’t help if anyone turned around, but all the light reflecting off the glass would, hopefully, keep her off their radar for just a bit longer.

“We don’t even know what _this_ ,” curly hair said, sounding exasperated, “is.”

The woman didn’t look at him, her attention fully on the blank screen. “Fury did,” she said and Carol straightened. “Just do it. Please.”

No one argued but the long days had settled on their shoulders and no one was quite ready to do what she asked. Not at that moment.

 “Tell me the second you get a signal,” She continued in the silence that followed. “I want to know who’s on the other end of that thing.”

The woman turned and Carol realized that, at some point, she had moved away from the wall to stand directly behind them. They had the pager with no knowledge of what it did besides the fact that it sent a signal.

“Where’s Fury?” But the answer didn’t matter.

She already knew.

oOo

The fridge was full of bottled up protein shakes, fruit, vegetables, and chicken. Lots and lots of chicken. Carol dumped some on a plate and shoved it into the microwave. She shed her jacket while it cooked and ignored the not so subtle way everyone was trying not to look at her.

Oh, they tried to hide it. Natasha Romanoff was particularly good at it. But everyone in the room had their attention focused on her despite them talking to each other or watching the screens. The microwave dinged and she pulled out the plate and rummaged through a couple of drawers.

“Silverware’s in that one,” Bruce Banner said, empty glass in one hand, pointing just left of the sink. He stopped by the fridge, fumbled with the dispenser, never quite taking his eyes off her. It wasn’t in an invasive way—more curiosity.

Ice missed his glass completely and clattered to the floor. It slid to Carol’s feet, under the edge of the cabinets, and got lost under the fridge.

“Oh, _no_ ,” Banner said with all the exhaustion of someone who managed to do something so clumsily bizarre regularly with each time managing to be a complete accident. He placed his still empty cup on the counter, pushed his glasses up on his nose, and kneeled with a groan.

Carol laughed—she couldn’t help it—and got down beside him to help pick up the mess.  

“Sorry,” he said, head low, attention now on the lines of grain in the flooring. “I’m, uh, normally not that bad.”

She hummed and tossed what she had gathered into the sink. “I’m sure,” Carol said, the words sprinkled with just enough humour that the lack of conviction didn’t matter. She dug out a fork and knife from the drawer he had pointed to and paused when she realized that he had gone back to staring. “Uh—”

“Sorry,” Banner said, fumbling for his cup. “Sorry; that’s rude.”

Carol picked at her chicken and decided that there were more important things to worry about. Like how Steve Rogers had moved around the lounge chairs to stand just a few feet away, arms crossed over his chest.

She met his gaze, saw the bags under his eyes, the creases between his eyebrows.

 _Captain America_. In the flesh. He seemed smaller and bigger and _more_ than everything she had ever expected. A war hero lost to time, unfrozen, standing before her.

“You knew Fury?” He wasn’t aggressive, he wasn’t meek. His frame was that of a weary man. A tired soldier, but there was a softness to his eyes she didn’t expect to see.

(He was Atlas, she realized later; a willing Atlas who held up the world without the demand from the Gods even though it wasn’t his to carry.)

Carol slid onto one of the barstools at the island. Placed her plate down, stuck her fork in the chicken, but didn’t eat just yet. “I did,” she said, and the past tense howled through her bones like a late night winter wind. Her teeth grit, the back of her eyes stung. “Who did this?”

Rogers took the seat across from her. He moved slowly, like a man approaching a snake.

She wanted to tell him that her bared teeth weren’t for him but the words caught in her throat.

“His name is Thanos.”

 _Thanos_.

“The Mad Titan.”

Rogers rested his forearms on the marble. “You’ve heard of him.”

“Yeah,” Carol said and stabbed her fork through a green bean. She closed her eyes and the shattered remains of Nova—broken and scattered across its solar system—flashed across her eyelids. “Yeah, I know of him.” Her appetite evaporated and she pushed the plate to the side, leaned forward, and met Roger’s sharp gaze. “What happened?”

**Author's Note:**

> ahhh someone requested this? i think? i don't remember


End file.
